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-Is'^sra^pj^ Crosby Lincoln 



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JOSEPH C. LINCOLN 
An Appreciation by Hamlin Garland 

Joseph Lincoln is not only a novelist of wide rejir.- 
tation, he is a public benefactor. His success has in 
it something heartening and corrective. In the midst 
of work which appeals to the base and cynical in 
human life (American city life) his clean, whole- 
some, humorous stories of Cape Cod sea captains and 
their neighbors, give evidence of the fact that there 
is a huge public for decent and homely fiction, just 
as the success of his play "Shavings" is evidence that 
there is a paying audience for a decent and homely 
drama. 

His books can be read aloud in the family circle 
Avith joy to all the members of it — I know, for T 
have myself read eight or ten of them to my wife and 
daughters. They make no pretence of being pro- 
found, or new, or "smart." They are filled with the 
characters and the humor which are native to the 
Cape. I^incoln knows these Cape towns and their 
inhabitants as Irving Bacheller knows his men of the 
North Woods, for he was raised among them and 
lives in their neighborhood several months of each 
year. He looks like one of them, like an old skipper, 
hearty, unassuming and kindly. The task which he 
has set himself is one which calls for a keen sense of 
character, democracy of sentiment and a fancy wliich 
never — or very seldom — loses its hold on the solid 
ground of experience. His plots are sometimes negli- 
gible, but his characters, even when they seem a bit 
repetitious, are a joy. His prosperity is well earned. 

Hamlin Garlano. 

Fttbllahb; 
OCl" ?s. {»>» 



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JOSEPH CROSBY LINCOLN 

"A stretch of hill and valley, swathed thick in robes of 

white, 
The buildings blots of blackness, the windows gems of 

light, 
A moon, now clear, now hidden, as in its headlong race 
The north wind drags the cloud wrack in tatters o'er 

its face ; 
Mailed twigs that click and clatter upon the tossing tree, 
And, like a giant's chanting, the deep voice of the sea 
As 'mid the stranded ice cakes the bursting breakers 

foam — 
The old familiar picture — a winter night at home." 

"WixTER Nights at Home" from "Cape Cod Ballads" 




T was in just such a setting as this 
that Joseph C. Lincoln made his ap- 
pearance in this world. Had he been a 
few hours earlier, he might have shared 
the same birthday with another illustri- 
ous Lincoln, Abraham. Perhaps the 
Fates held council and decided that it would never do to have 
two famous Lincolns born on the same day. At all events, 
the vital records show that Joseph Crosby Lincoln was born 
on the 13th of February, 1870, at Brewster on Cape Cod, 
not many miles from the spot where the Pilgrim Fathers 
landed after their memorable voyage just two hundred and 
fifty years before. 

The old sea captains who have helped to make the Cape 
famous and who figure so delightfully in almost every story 
Lincoln writes are nearly all gone now, but in 1870 there 
were plenty of them. Lincoln's own father was one, a vet- 
eran of many a daring voyage to far distant lands. So were 
his grandfather and all his uncles. And there were others on 
every hand. Indeed, the ])opulation of the staid little village 



JOSEPH CROSBY LINCOLN 



of Brewster was made up almost wholly of sea cap'ns and 
their families. For fully a mile each way from the Lincoln 
homestead — there are only two ways from any place on Cape 
Cod — every house contained a Cap'n. 

A year after the boy was born, Captain Lincoln died of a 
fever in Charleston, South Carolina, and upon his mother fell 
the task of shaping young Lincoln. She was a brave, self- 
reliant woman, who had made many adventurous voyages with 
her liusband, and to her tender care, devotion and inspiration 
her son has himself jiaid loving tribute in many of his poems 
and sketches. 

In his boyliood young Joe roamed the Cape at will. He 
knew every nook and inlet, every place to fish, every cran- 
berr_y bog, every sand dune. And best of all he knew and 
loved and was loved by most of the inhabitants. He rode the 
old stage coach from Harwich to Chatham ; he knew the 
lightkeepers, the fishermen, the life savers, and the cracker- 
box oracles in the village stores. The ])erfume of the green 
salt meadows, the pungent pines and bayberry were as nectar 
to him. The fishing boats, the dripping nets, "the mighty 
surge and thunder of the surf along the shore" were ]iart of 

his very existence. 
It is this wonder- 
ful familiarity 
with tlie subject, 
the deep under- 
standing and sym- 
pathy for all these 
various ty))es and 
scenes that asserts 
Lincoln's Birthplace itself SO ])leasingly 




JOSEPH CROSBY LINCOLN 




and convincingly in all that he 
writes. The racy vernacular of 
liis characters rings true; his 
folks are real people — people 
that we all somehow feel that 
we have known. 

In those days it was an accepted 
fact that most Cape Cod boys, when 
they reached "cabin boy" age, 
should go to sea as their fathers 
before them had done. Generally 
they sailed with a neighbor, or a 
relative, who taught them the lore of 
the great sailing ships and drilled 
them in navigation till they were 
readj'^ to command ships of their 
own. But young Lincoln's relatives had other plans for him. 
They thought he would make a splendid financier and ar- 
ranged for him to enter a banking house in Boston. One 
can picture the mental torture of the young man thus miscast. 
In his novel. "Galusha the Magnificent," Lincoln takes the 
temperamental Galusha through tliis same experience. Laugh- 
able enough it seems as Lincoln writes it in the story, but it 
is doubtful if his own at!air seemed quite as humorous at 
the time. 

After many months Lincoln escaped from the figures and 
accounts, and he confesses, "I have always felt that they were 
fully as glad to get rid of me as I was to leave them." He knew 
by that time what he wanted to do. But it was not, dear 
reader, what you surmise. He wanted to be an artist. How 
many autliors have begun with the brush, later to discard it 



The old church tvhere Lincoln 
was baptized looks much the same 
as it did on that auspicious day 



JOSEPH CROSBY LINCOLN 




for the pen ! Eventually under 
the guidance of Henry Sand- 
ham, whose signature was the 
familiar "Hy," he went to Bos- 
ton, where he and a friend began 
to do commercial work. The 
young fellows were not over- 
whelmingly successful and often 
to make a picture sell better he 
wrote a verse or a joke. Pres- 
ently he found that the verses 
sold better without the' pictures. 
He began to write verses and 
short stories in earnest — verses 
in swinging meter about the old 
home and the folks down on the 
Cape — stories that revealed a 
quaint, witty and wholly delight- 
ful people. They were like a 
breath of invigorating salt air and the editors snapped them 
up with zest. 

His first short story Lincoln sold to the Saturday Evening 
Post ; the succeeding ones landed in many other prominent 
magazines. His verses appeared in Harper's Weekly, Puck, 
The Youth's Cojupanion and other journals. 

About this time bicycling came into its heyday. The 
League of American Wheelmen was a flourishing organiza- 
tion of several hundred thousand with an official (and very 
readable) pulilication known as tlie Bulletin. Lincoln spent 
three years as associate editor and when interest in bicycling 
began to drop he wisely decided to trv his hand as a full- 



Mr. Lincoln on a fishing jaunt 
with Harold Brett, who has 
illustrated many of his books 



JOSEPH CROSBY LINCOLN 



fledged writer. To New York he came, with a young wife 
and child to serve both as inspiration and incentive to bigger 
things. 

In 1902, Mr. Lincoln collected his verses to make his first 
book, "Cape Cod Ballads." It was a neat little volume, witli 
pictures by. Kemble. Many of these verses are read each 
season by Mr. Lincoln in his lectures and the book has 
attained enormous popularity. A new gift edition of these 
Ballads has recently been issued, in a box with "Our Village," 
another charming volume containing sketches fragrant of old 
times. 

Mr. Lincoln's first novel was "Cap'n Eri," that deliciously 
human tale of the three old sea cap'ns who, despairing of 
their joint efforts as housekeepers, advertised for a wife. It 
is difficult to guess at the number of editions that have been 
printed of "Cap'n Eri" and it is hard, too, to believe that the 
story which seems so spontaneously funny was written under 
great labor on a corner of the dining room table from mid- 
night on Saturdays through Sunday mornings until the 
manuscript was 
completed. 

Following 
"Cap'n Eri" Mr. 
Lincoln wrote 
"Partners of the 
T i d e," "M r. 
Pratt" and "The 
Old Home 
House." Then 
came a long 
string of notable ^ ^ j ip „ 

^ Cape Cod Folks 




JOSEPH CROSBY LINCOLN 



successes, beginning with "Cy Whittaker's Place" and ending, 
for the moment, with "Galusha the Magnificent." One re- 
markable thing about Mr. Lincoln's success as a writer is the 
fact that each succeeding novel has a larger sale than the 
one which preceded it. It is doubtful if any other American 
writer has a record as enviable as this. 

There are three — sometimes four — hours a day that Mr. 
I>incoln reserves sacredly to himself for work. These are 
from nine in the morning until noon or one o'clock, during 
which time he disappears into his workshop, the address of 
wliich no one knows but himself, and either writes or blocks 
out his characters and plots. It ma}^ be added that Mr. Lin- 
coln scorns a typewriter and when writing uses a soft stubby 
pencil and generoush' large sheets of yellow paper. 

Mr. Lincoln has little sympathy with the creators of fault- 
finding and sordid novels of small town life, who insist that 
that sort of thing, and it alone, is "realism." He has no desire 
to attempt this style of literature himself. "Perhaps I could 
write a story with wholly gloomy situations and unhajapy 
misadventures," he said recently, "but I wouldn't like to try 
it. I would much rather try to make people cheerful and keep 
myself cheerful at the same time. Life contains both laughter 
and sorrow; and it seems to me that one is as real as the other." 

The popular impression that Mr. Lincoln uses actual people 
as characters in his books and actual localities for his scene is 
without foundation, despite tlie fact tliat many people who 
have been to Cape Cod will swear that they know just the 
place or the person he refers to. Regarding this Mr. Lincoln 
says : 

"In writing of a Cape Cod town or village, although I pur- 
posely refrained from describing it as any one town in 



.JOSEPH CROSBY LIXCOLX 



^ 




i II U fcr IJftsi 



% fiii 




Mr. Lincoln's Summer Home on Cape Cod 

particular. I have tried conscientiously to give it the character- 
istics of Cape Cod towns I am acquainted with. The pi'omon- 
tories and inlets and hills and marshes in 'my' Cape Cod 
may not be found where I have located them, but I have tried 
very hard to make them like those which are, or were, to be 
found on the real Cape. 

"And so with the Cape Codders in my stories. I have never 
knowingly drawn the exact, recognizable portrait of an indi- 
vidual. I have, of course, received hundreds of letters from 
readers who inform me, in strict confidence, that they know 

the original of 'Cap'n ' and recognized him at once. 

Nevertheless, they are wrong, for no character of mine has 
been, if I could prevent it, a portrait of one living or who has 
lived. I have endeavored always to be true to tyj^e, and in 
writing of the old deep-sea captain, the coasting skipper, the 
longshoreman or the people of the Cape villages, I have done 
my best to portray each as I have seen and known specimens 



10 JOSEPH CROSBY LINCOLN 

of his or her kind. But I have endeavored just as sincerely 
never to draw an individual portrait which might offend or 
hurt. And in attempting to transcribe the habit of language 
I have made it a rule never to use an expression or idiom I 
have not heard used by a native of the old colony." 

As a matter of fact. Mr. Lincoln does not have to study 
Cape Codders. He is, of course, one of them. His very 
speech marks him as such — the slightly clipped, curt words; 
the "hev" and "hed" that once in a while take the place of 
have or had, and even (whisper it) a touch of good old Yankee, 
talking through his nose. 

His great success has brought him to that happy stage, 
enjoyed by comparatively few authors, where his work is 
actually sought by editors for magazine publication years 
in advance of its being written. His books are eagerly sought 
out by theatrical producers for plays and motion pictures. A 
play based upon his novel, "Shavings." has been one of the 
real dramatic successes of recent years. 

Some years ago a reporter asked Mr. Lincoln to name his 
favorite author. He said in reply: 

"I have a good many, for I read all sorts of books, and at 
all times. I don't know that I can name any particular author 
wlio may be called my favorite. I am very fond of Stevenson, 
for instance — but then, so I am of Kipling — of Mark Twain, 
of Tarkington, and many others. I think I like a story for 
the story's sake. I like to like my characters or dislike them 
in the old-fashioned way. I realize — no one can help realizing 
— the fine literary craftsmanship in a book like 'Lord Jim.' It 
is a wonderful piece of character mosaic, and yet in reading it 
I am always conscious of the literary work. I say to myself. 
'This is marvelous; see how the writer is picking his hero to 



JOSEPH CROSBY LIXCOLN 



11 



piecH.s. thought by thought, motive by motive.' And being so 
conscious of the writer, I do not lose myself in the story. This 
is not offered as criticism: certainly I should not presume to 
criticise Mr. Conrad. It is more of a confession of something 
lacking on my part. I enjoy reading 'Lord Jim,' or 'The Old 
Wives' Tale,' but I do not return to them again and again as 
I do to — well, to 'Huckleberry Finn' or 'The Beloved Vaga- 
bond.' Perhaps this is, as some of my realistically inclined 
friends tell me, a childish love for romance on my part. If 
it is, I can't help it; as I said, this statement is not offered 
as an excuse, but a confession. 

"This sort of thing shows in my own stories. It would be 
very hard for me to write a long story which should end dis- 
mally. It is oiily too true that stories in real life frequently 
end that way, but I don't like my yarns to do so. So it is 
fair to presume that in the majority of books I may hereafter 
write, the hero and heroine will be united, virtue rewarded and 
vice punished, as has liajapened in most of those for which I am 




Another view of Mr. Lincoln's Cape Cod Home 



JOSEPH CROSBY LIXCOLX 



already responsible. Perhaps tliis same weakness for a story, a 
cheerful story, makes me care little for the so-called problem 
novel. It doesn't mean that I am not fond of novels dealing 
witli certain kinds of problems. Winston Churchill's political 
stories, or his 'The Inside of the Cup,' I like immensely; but the 
sex problem — ^the divorce question, and all that sort of thing — - 
does not appeal to me. A morbid lot of disagreeable people, 
married or otherwise, moping and quarreling through a long 
story seem to me scarcely worth while. To a specialist in 
nervous diseases such a study might be interesting, but I really 
doubt if the average healthy man or woman finds it so. Cer- 
tainly we should not care to associate with such people were 
they living near us. We should get away from them if we 
could." 

^Ir. Lincoln's favorite recreations are fishing and golf. He 
still haunts the ponds, the little lakes and the bays of his boy- 
hood, where the bass fight hardest and the largest pickerel 
are found. Occasionally he takes a jaunt into Maine or 
Canada to try his luck with the northern fish. He works 
systematically in the moi-ning at his writing, but in the after- 
noon he frequently may be found on one of the beautiful golf 
courses overlooking the sea near his Cape Cod home, or motor- 
ing over the Cape Cod roads, or superintending a clambake 
for a party of friends, a task at which he shines as brilliantly 
as any of his cap'ns. His entire summers are generally spent 
on the Cape, but in the winter he goes to New York, where 
he works even longer hours than in summer. 

The Lincoln clan appears ever to be exponents of true 
American life and ideals. As Abe Lincoln, our great Presi- 
dent, gave his all to upbuild America, so, too, is Joe Lincoln 
endeavoring to uphold in his inimitable novels our finest 



JOSEPH CROSBY LIXCOLX 



13 



traditions. "He is saving for us a precious part of America," 
says Hildegarde Hawtliorne in her splendid tribute entitled 
"Joseph C. Lincoln's America," "writing down, before it is too 
late, a past recent enough, but changing fast, a past closely 
woven into the very fibre of our character and meaning as a 
nation. He shows us, too, the coming era, the Cape Cod of 
today against its background of yesterday. And when I say 
Cape Cod I mean pretty much any part of our country that is 
not within the boundaries of a great city, but that has drawn 
from the fountains of American heritage for its foundations." 






'^.P' 



..r>~— 




Ji^y^ 



A Bit of the Mannscript for "Galnsha the Magnificent" 



It THE BOOKS OF JOSEPH C. LINCOLN 



GAI.USHA THE MAGNIFICENT 

Laugliable, lovable Galusha Bangs, whimsical and impractical 
archeologist, in his entertaining way brings about great results 
in a village clown East. 

THE PORTYGEE 

The temperament and "calf love" of tlie son of a Spanish opera 
singer make difficulties with his Yankee grandfather. 

SHAVINGS 

The quaint, unbusinesslike windmill-maker has no success in 
posing as a bank robber, but his loyalty and shrewdness bring 
happiness to all his friends. 

MARY-'GUSTA 

A pair of old sea captains become guardians to an orphan girl. 
She mothers them persistently, in spite of their efforts to bring 
her up. 

EXTRICATING OBADIAH 

Cap'n Noah Newcomb extricates his former cabin boy from the 
dangers involved in unexpectedly iniieriting a fortune. 

THANKFUL'S INHERITANCE 

Thankful Barnes and her helper Emily lose their boarders when 
the house proves "ha'nted," but they gain a Cape Cod Sea Cap- 
tain and a handsome j^oung lawyer — for life. 

KENT KNOWLES: Quahaug 

Kent Knowles resembled the quahaug. But his search for a 
long lost cousin's child, "Little Frank," who turns out to be 
Frances, has a radical effect on the erstwhile quahaug. 

CAP'N DAN'S DAUGHTER 

Cap'n Dan's .daughter rescues her father from her mother's 
social ambitions, by showing the good lady an exaggerated imi- 
tation of her own doings. 

MR. PRATT'S PATIENTS 

Mr. Solomon Pratt and his friend Miss Eureka Sparrow intro- 
duce original methods in the Sea Breeze Bluff Sanatorium for 
Rest and Right IJving. 

THE RISE OF ROSCOE PAINE 

Roscoe Paine and his sister seek a simple style of living on Cape 
Cod, but they find adventure and romance. 

THE POSTMASTER 

Cap'n Zeb Snow is discontented witii inactivity after retiring 
from tlie sea. As postmaster he finds all tlie activity iie wants. 



THE BOOKS OF JOSEPH C. LINCOLN 15 



CAP'N WARRENS WARDS 

Cap'n Warren feels liiinself in strange waters as guardian to a 
niece and nephew brought up in snobbish New York society. 

THE WOMAN-HATERS 

A young man and an old lighthouse keeper, both avowed woman- 
haters, catch each other clearing up the misunderstandings which 
have made them so. 

THE DEPOT MASTER 

The depot master has unsurpassed opportunities for observing 
the people and events of the village, and he himself becomes in- 
volved in tangled love aflfairs. 

KEZIAH COFFIN 

Keziah Coffin, typical Cape Cod old maid, proves the good angel 
of the minister in his courtship. Incidentally, she turns out not 
to be incurably an old maid. 

CY WHITTAKER'S PLACE 

Old Cy WHiittaker, bachelor, adopts a little girl. He and an old 
crony form a "Board of Strategy" for her upbringing. 

CAPE COD BALLADS 

Over eight}^ poems of Cape Cod scenes and people. Is included 
with "Our Village" in the illustrated gift edition. 

OUR VILLAGE 

In a series of unforgetable little sketches, Mr. Lincoln describes 
the life and the people of Cape Cod thirty years ago. This book 
may now be had, together with "Cape Cod Ballads," in the 
special new illustrated gift edition. 

PARTNERS OF THE TIDE 

Cap'n Ezra Titcomb and young Bradley Nickerson go into the 
wrecking business and meet with a series of surprising adventures 
and difficulties. 

THE "OI>D HOME HOUSE" 

Eleven stories about Cap'n Jonadab Wixon and Cap'n Barzilla 
W'ingate, and their "Old Home House" for summer boarders. 

MR. PRATT 

Twi> young New Yorkers wish to lead the Natural Life, and Mr. 
Pratt gives them some pointers about it. 

CAP'N ERI 

Cap'n Eri and his two friends decide that one of them must 
marry to provide a housekeeper for the three, and they start on 
a series of genial adventures. 



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New York — Puhlishers — I/Ondon 



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